Tag Archives: Evil

About that incessant competition for dominance… (August 30, AD 2026, Proper 17)

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Readings (Track 1)

It would be hard to find a sharper contrast than that in today’s readings from Exodus and Matthew. Exodus: like last week’s reading, the Egyptian oppression of the Israelites is front and center, and God is going to do something about it. “I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians…So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.” On the other hand, Mattthew. Last Sunday we heard Peter’s confession: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (16:16.) That sounds promising—maybe Jesus will do to the Romans what Moses did to the Egyptians. But no, “Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”

We often hear that the Old Testament is concerned about material things, the New Testament about spiritual things. If that were true it might explain the contrast, but recall how the Romans reading ends: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” Overcoming evil—in all its forms—is still the challenge; but how?

Moses did bring Israel out of Egypt, but Egypt—speaking metaphorically—was still in Israel. Ironically, it’s King Solomon, renown for his wisdom, who puts the Israelites to forced labor to build his temple (1 Kgs 5:13ff). When at Solomon’s death the people ask for relief, Solomon’s son Rehoboam responds “My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke; my father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions” (1Ki 12:14). Israel out of Egypt—relatively easy; Egypt out of Israel—not so easy.

Jesus doesn’t explain why he, the Messiah, “must” go to Jerusalem, but we get a partial explanation later in response to the request that James and John get the choice seats.

“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many” (20:25-28).

Pulling back the camera, it’s no good focusing on the Egyptian pharaoh or the Roman emperor. The problem’s deeper, this unending competition for dominance. Jesus going to Jerusalem can’t be another version of that. And Jesus’ followers have hardly begun to learn that that’s not what he’s about.

So, in today’s Gospel: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” If we asked Matthew what that looked like in practice, he’d probably sigh and tell us to read the rest of his Gospel. That wouldn’t be bad advice.

Happily, our second reading is the second half of Romans 12. Some weeks back we heard Paul ask the Romans “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” (6:3). Baptism: an enactment of Jesus’ “take up their cross.” And he begins our current chapter with “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice” (12:1). So, while I don’t think Paul’s writing with the Matthew scroll before him (the timing’s wrong), Jesus’ words are being passed down orally, and this chapter is a useful exploration of what “those who lose their life for my sake will find it” might look like in Rome. So Paul—still in last week’s reading—goes immediately to “I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think” (12:3). Enough with this unending competition for dominance.

It would be tedious to go through the reading verse by verse. It’s a reading to take home and tape to the bathroom mirror. One verse might show itself relevant on Tuesday, another on Friday. But let’s notice a couple of things before wrapping up.

“Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.” Probably useful to remember when watching the news or scrolling on the smartphone. I’m struck by Ellen Davis’ definition of blessing: “Blessing is fundamentally an act of acknowledging the essential goodness of the other’s being; it is a commitment of one’s will to the flourishing of the other.”[1] Blessing isn’t about approving what the other is doing, but acknowledging that that “other” also bears God’s image, with all the potential for wonder and tragedy that involves.

“Outdo one another in showing honor.” I’d guess that competition is hardwired into our DNA. Paul’s wise enough not to try to squelch it. But he does think it can be redirected. In any parish we’re probably pretty good at honoring some, not so good at honoring others. Paul’s encouraging us to be proactive. As we heard last week, God’s given each of us gifts for the good of the body. That’s something to celebrate. More often. More comprehensively.

“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” How? The second verse of “Lead on, O King eternal” (#555) nails it: “for not with sword’s loud clashing, nor roll of stirring drums, / but deeds of love and mercy, the heavenly kingdom comes.”

Or, as the old riddle goes, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.”

[1] Opening Israel’s Scriptures, p.28.

About that “valley of the shadow of death” (4th of Easter, 5/11/2025)

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Readings

“Listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.” Today’s texts keep us on our toes, zooming in on the individual, zooming out to capture the whole course of our history with God. Of the texts, Psalm 23 is the best known, so we’ll start there.

Formally, it’s an extended, an exuberant, affirmation of trust. It’s often set to soothing music. That’s not bad, but it doesn’t help us notice the drama. That line, “guides me along right pathways.” And we always follow the guidance we’re given?  So, toward the end: “Surely your goodness and mercy shall follow me…” That’s a head-scratcher of a translation; normally we’d translate the verb ‘pursue.’ There are times when I’ve blown off the guidance and God’s goodness and mercy need to pursue me. In other words, that one sheep that goes astray in Jesus’ parable: that would be most of us from time to time.

“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, / I shall fear no evil; / for you are with me.” Just what is the psalmist trusting? That things will always be placid? This year our Great Vigil again included Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace: “for you are with me” indeed!

And here we’re at the border between the individual and the global perspectiver, because there’s that popular response to the psalmist’s words: “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, / I shall fear no evil; / for I’m the baddest *** in the valley.” What does it mean to live smart, in full awareness of the world as it is?

Which brings us to our text from the Revelation, whose central question is—arguably—how God conquers evil. The Revelation answers that question by transforming popular religious symbols in the light of Christ. It contrasts what John hears and what John sees. We heard part of one of those contrasts last Sunday. John hears “the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered.” And we expect that John will see a mighty warrior. But no: “Then I saw… a Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered.” God conquering evil doesn’t play out as we expect.

Today’s reading gives us another contrast. Just before the verses we heard John hears the command to mark out twelve thousand from each of the twelve tribes, the “one hundred forty four thousand,” implying preparation for a holy war. What John sees (today’s reading): “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages.”

Who are they? John’s told: “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” The description suggests martyrdom, and that would make sense, because the Revelation is warning its hearers that the psalmist’s “right pathways” could result in martyrdom (recall Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego). But if martyrs, martyrs because they are first witnesses. In that, they follow Jesus, for ‘witness,’ as we heard two Sundays ago, is the first thing the Revelation needs to say about Jesus: “the faithful witness.”

How does God conquer evil? The Revelation’s answer: “a Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered.” And we’re the witnesses, we who—in the words of the Great Vigil—“once renounced Satan and all his works, and promised to serve God faithfully in his holy Catholic Church” (BCP 292). Perfect witnesses? No, hence the pursuing goodness and mercy.

And in all this the Revelation slips in another transformation. Who does the shepherding? The Lamb. The Lamb is the Shepherd, and it is with that glad affirmation that we continue to use and put our weight on Psalm 23.

A couple comments on the other readings and I’ll close. The reading from John chapter 10 continues the theme of Jesus as the Good Shepherd, introduced at the beginning of that chapter. Verse 26 might awaken some Calvinistic anxiety: “but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep.” So there are Jesus’ sheep and not Jesus’ sheep, forever divided? That would make nonsense of John’s Gospel, written, as we heard two Sundays ago, “so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” So we might better hear v.26 as “but you do not believe, because you do not [yet] belong to my sheep.”

Tabitha’s story in Acts does a number of things. First, it reminds us that the psalmist’s “right pathways” do not always lead to an interview with Nebuchadnezzar, Pilate, etc. Witness, whether borne by Jesus, that great multitude, or Tabitha, is life-giving, thus all the widows “weeping and showing tunics and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was with them.” Her resurrection (that’s the verb behind the NRSV’s “get up”) witnesses that the psalmist’s trust was well-founded: “and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

And, perhaps most importantly, this shepherding role is not confined to Jesus. Tabitha, with her “good works and acts of charity” shepherded. “My sheep hear my voice…and they follow me” said Jesus. After stories like Tabitha’s we might paraphrase: “My sheep hear my voice, they follow me, they shepherd.” And so her story gives us one enfleshment of the Revelation’s vision: How does God conquer evil? One tunic at a time.